Propositions, the Footman says
by delyrical
Summary: Two: The bells are tolling in the rain.
1. he used to steal quills

**Pet project with juncici! Each of us made up 25 prompts and 25 story ideas, and we'll be posting drabbles from them. (All...100...of them. Bring it on!) Like Jun-chan said, some drabbles will look a bit like oneshots. |D Similar to 50 Sentences. (You can tell I'm totally ripping this A/N off from Jun-chan. -shot'd-)**

**M'kay! No idea how much time I spent on this...half an hour? Whipped it up and here you guys go. (A note on Tides: I'M WORKING ON IT, I SWEAR! I just hit...a bit of a block.)**

**HURRY UP AND POST YOURS, JUN-CHAN! **

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(Story Idea: _Harry Potter universe_

Prompt: _"Hickory and phoenix feather," she had said, and he had never heard of any wand more beautiful than that._)

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The first time he meets her formally, she is choking and hacking up dust in a corner of the store, and all he can do is stand and wait. Awkward: folded, goose-pickled arms and nervous, squinted glances. The dust clears away after some time, and he wonders if he hasn't already scuffed a hole into the woodworks of the floor with the toe of his shoe.

"Er, are you---are you alright?" He clears his throat. There is bewilderment in his voice, and it is rightly there---after all, since when would Kuroba Kaito, scion of the most ancient and noble Kuroba line, _stutter_? It is unseemly. Ungainly. And for some strange reason, Kaito feels he cannot, at any cost, seem ungainly in front of the coughing girl.

She waves away his question with a toss of her wild hair. His eyes can't help but follow the movement. "No, no, I'm alright. Just---how old is this place, really? I'm finding meters of dust in the oddest places." A quick, easy grin. He is struck by how..._free_ she seems, robin egg eyes beaming and chin held at an angle. A strand of her black bangs falls in front of an eye, catching in an eyelash.

He decides, then and there. _She is beautiful._

"Well, the sign out front says since 832 B.C...?" Kaito loses the carefully cultivated purebloodedness of his stature with her, no longer worrying about Father and Mother watching him with evaluating eyes. He had long buried the laughing, barefooted silhouette of his childhood (_a boy in love with life itself, pulling tablecloths and stealing quills_) for, as he had been taught, a public image. A composed, dignified public image of a dutiful son following the Kuroba Touichi's footsteps.

(White, leathered footsteps, with a glinting monocle watching the way...

and _oh_, he wants to hate Father so much, but he simply _can't_.)

In front of this smiling, sunshine-blue girl, though, it all strips away, and he is only a hesitant, wishing 11-year-old, no longer a jaded Slytherin to-be trying to be older than he is.

And what worries Kaito the most is that he can't figure out why.

"Really, I was half-joking. Do you take everything so seriously, Mr...?" Still her playfulness.

"Ah. Kuroba. Kuroba Kaito." Here, some semblance of order comes back to the boy. He nods once, expression schooled to be pensive and collected. And---he remembers---extends his hand.

There is surprise in her single blink, and as she takes his hand she says, "W-wow, fancy meeting one of the Kurobas...Tou-san would be head over heels right now."

"And you aren't?" A sly cheekiness, his indigo eyes smirking. Somewhere in his mind he is shocked at how out of character he is acting.

Or had it always been the other way, and he'd been out of character...for...years?

(Ah. _There_ is the Kuroba Kaito. That quill-stealing, tablecloth-pulling boy silhouette...)

"I'm sorry?" A faint blush colors her cheeks. "I---I ought to hit you, just for that."

"Hm? With what? Dust?"

"---No! My mop, of course!"

A confused silence meets the statement.

"I...have a mop. At home. Daddy gave it to me as a going-away present. Since I'm off to Hogwarts and all that," she says defensively.

"Er, alright." He decides to not question her further, and instead moves his eyes across the rows and rows of silent shelves, bloated with dilapidated stacks of silent wand cases. The corridor they are in still has dust swirling around them, and sunlight shows them dancing, flickering. "So, you have your wand yet?"

"Oh! Yes. Just got it, really. Hickory and phoenix feather," she announces proudly, and takes a slim, reddish-brown stick from her pocket. Twirls it in her fingers. He watches, entranced again.

_Hickory and phoenix feather. _Kaito has never heard of any wand more beautiful than that.

"What about yours?"

"I---what?"

"Did you get your wand yet?"

"Oh! No. I heard you and came in here. Had to see the pretty girl." A crooked grin. (And he is stunned once more at the kind of person she seems to bring out of him. He'd thought he'd forgotten him.) Her eyes widen and her face reddens again.

"You---come on. Let's...go get your wand," she says hastily, and drags him down the aisle. He beams at the shelves.

-

Back at the front of the shop, Ollivander smiles as Kaito asks for the phoenix feather wands.


	2. she was born the day after

In lieu of Jun-chan's fellow French Revolution drabble. Or one-shot, bahaha.

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Okay. So. Juncici hijacked my document on buzzword, and...this conversation followed. IT WAS A DARE OKAYY. (Italic is her! --INTENSE.)

.

...hi junbug :}

**lalalalala haha right.**

**here.**

**I'LL START IT FOR YOU.**

**"GET BACK HERE YOU SCOUNDREL."**

**THAR.**

**-SNICKERS-**

**YOU CHEATER.**

AGHHHHHHHHHH YOU'RE THE CHEATER 333

**OMG THIS IS LIKE CHAT HAHAHAHAHA**

LULS EXACTLY

....NOW STOP DISTRACTING ME GEEZ

**SHEESH MAN.**

**LIKE.**

**REALLY.**

**I DISTRACT IN SEXIEST WAY POSSIBLE WHAAT**

THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN.

STOP THAT.

THAT SEXINESS.

**OMG**

**BUT UR SEXEH LKIE T222OYUUUUU.**

**WHUT.**

**I'M 7337**

...i got lost.

no comprendo chatspeako DD: 7337 = LEET = ELITE? THAT'S ALL I KNOWWW

**LOLOLOLOLOL WHATEVS.**

**WE'RE TOO NERDY FOR 7337NESS.**

**LOLOLOLOL I WENT -NESS**

**ON 7337**

LIKE I SAID

VERY A UNIQUE PERSON YOU ARE.

**I DARE YOU TO KEEP THIS CONVO WHEN YOU POST THIS.**

**DARE YOU.**

**DAREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.**

...

-sweats-

WELL WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN RETURN? CAN'T JUST BE AN EMPTY DARE, OH

**....................**

**B-BUT.**

**WELL**

**GIVE ME A DARE DAMN YOU.**

BAHAHAHHAAA -SNICKER-

HM.

ALRIGHT.

-STROKES THINKING BEARD-

...I JUST WROTE BREAD INSTEAD OF BEARD.

I HAVE A THINKING BREAD.

ANYWHO.

UH.

I DARE YOU TOOOOOOO

TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

....

have squirtle show a cameo in your next drabble. AND IT CAN'T BE A QUICK MENTION. :}

**... LOLOL YOU HAVE TO POST THIS *WHOLE CONVO***

**SO PEOPLE KNOW I'M NOT THE CRAZY ONE WITH THE SQUIRTLE THING.**

**GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

GUHH FINNNE

...

-strokes thinking bread- LULS

**YAYYYY3**

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(Like I said. We're quite the, er, idiots. Aand, following Jun-chan's shameless plug for Buzzword: USE IT. Por favor? 8D )

ILU TOO, JUN-CHAN.

...ON WITH THE SHOWWW. Oh. And. I _am _a cheater: Using three prompts this time. -cackle-

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Idea: _A baby girl is born_

Prompt: _Rain _

Idea: _French Revolution setting_

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There'd been thunder, and three hours later, rain.

It kept going. The sky was quiet, holding breaths somehow through the light downpour. (Everything was a paradox these days. A Revolution, did you hear?

Against what?

_What?_ Fat, hook-nosed aristocrats. Pearls rolling across oily skin and hair larger than heads.

For bread, they were all whispering. Fire and glints of guillotine---

For _bread_. )

And again, the sky. It was a pastiche of white and lighter grays, and the water seemed almost holy in the atmosphere: a release, a sigh. For few, at least.

For others---they were still unbreathing. Stifled with the unmoving clouds.

And lastly---but never leastly; the poor boy, the sad man---For one final figure, it was none of the mentioned. He had always been strange.

He had always been grinning.

(And the executioner shivered, and wondered to himself:_ Did that damning smile ever come_ off?)

Kaito Kuroba was a respected, and in some cases, feared, man. So young to be taking on the reigns of the Revolution, peasants and commonfolk saw him as a savior of sorts, with his wild, defying crown of black hair and knowing curve of lips; indigo eyes and smile. The aristocrats, however, saw the violet-blue in the exact opposite context: The charisma terrified them. He could succeed, could rally, could bring_ fire_---and they knew it.

Which was why all raised their shaking goblets to the heavens when news came that

_Kaito Kuroba had been captured._

Kaito Kuroba, at noon of to-day, would be _beheaded_.

(Vous êtes miséricordieux, Dieu.)

And in the square, the guillotine stood, black and thin like a wizened, dark-hearted gentleman of the city's alleys. Its blade was hardly noticeable, concealed high up where no one bothered to look much.

After all, there was a much more terrifying sight hanging beneath it.

With a blissful smile holding the secrets of thousands, Kaito Kuroba grinned beatifically at the growing crowd.

"Ahh, ladies and _gentle_men! Gather 'round, yes yes, gather 'round. _Mon Dieu_, no need to push there, dears! You'll all have a wonderful view."

The people's spines grew cold in the rain.

"Mhm, it will be a fine show today, I believe. Don't you all agree?"

(_"I don't know, Monsieur---" _The boy in the back was silenced by a fearful mother.)

He spread his palms towards the sky, and heavy-lidded his eyes. Kuroba's expression grew odd. Pensive. Waiting. Beseeching.

The crowd murmured, and collected themselves with a hush at the awing spectacle before them.

He was silent, and no one was breathing. They watched.

One, two, three minutes passed. Kaito Kuroba seemed to be drinking the rain, eyes almost closed and tilted towards the sky. His black locks fell haphazardly across them, pasted and slick with water, tumbling just towards his wet eyelashes.

The peasants thought two wonderings: He is still their savior, and they are doomed.

The aristocrats grew nervous and impatient, wanting the radical to be gone, _gone_.

(The executioner, confused, glanced at the sky. He saw nothing worth seeing.)

"Alright."

The sudden word jolted through the crowd.

"I'm good now. Just making peace and all that. Wouldn't want the Lord getting any misgivings about us all, do we?"

Oh, and he was still so silver-tongued, his words double-edged and slippery like rain.

..._She mused_. And spread one hand over her stomach.

Nakamouri Aoko stood near the back but not quite at the end, in a place where no one would pay attention to her.

"My good brother," he started jovially towards the executioner, a golden-eyed and golden-haired man who looked at him warily. " Might a dying man bestow some last words to his people?"

Before the other could respond, he uttered a whispered '_Merci_' and grinned reassuringly at the crowd. World.

"My friends."

She closed her eyes as she felt a kick.

"My death will be horrific and gory."

His eyes were wry. She could only smile back, gazing at the cobblestones.

"But _s'il vous plaît_---do not fear."

Aoko wondered if he was thinking of the third heartbeat at all. _Yes, of course. Every remaining second of his wretched life._

"The Revolution started long before I embraced it. It began with the crookedness of the Lady's smile, the odor in the Lord's beetle eyes. It began the moment a poor, honest farmer sat with his children one evening and thought, I do not have bread for them. The Revolution seeded long before now, has continued, is continuing, and will---forever, 'till victory---go on."

_"What are we naming her?"_

_It was a night after many meetings, and the revolutionist stroked her hair._

_"Still so sure the babe's a girl?"_

_"Oui. I can feel it."_

_"Ah...then...mhm. What do you think of Victoire?"_

_She straightened and looked at him, his eyes._

_"You are so confident."_

_"Are there any reasons we shouldn't be?"_

_So many, she thought traitorously, but did not voice it. He saw it in her face instead._

_"We will come out of this, and France will be sweet and young again."_

_She lost herself in his words._

"No matter how beautiful _paradis_ may be, there can still never be nothing more magnificent than living. Stay strong, my friends, and you will reap your dues."

Another flutter against her stomach.

"I shall bid my goodbye soon, but allow me a last parting message" ---the entire time, neither had shown they recognized each other once---" of this: they may sever my neck" ---her final moment with him would be that of a stranger----"but they will never, _never_ sever our _freedom_!"

A ringing note, and, impassioned, the crowd cheered---

(Lady Koizumi signalled with an elegant hand from her tower, and in a fit of nerves

the executioner brought down the blade.)

There were sobs in the rain.

-

Across the city, in a home far from the square, a baby girl is born screaming into the next morning. The mother sets her jaw and holds the child with trembling, tearful hands.

_Victoire._


End file.
